Another Candidate Campaigning Against SOPA Supporter: Jack Arnold

from the keep-'em-coming dept

On Friday we posted about Karen Kwiatkowski running for Congress against Rep. Bob Goodlatte in Virginia using SOPA as a key campaign point. With Goodlatte being one of the key supporters of SOPA this makes a lot of sense. Soon after we posted that, we heard from Jack Arnold (and from his campaign, separately), noting that he's running against Rep. Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee and is also using SOPA as a key campaign issue. His "common sense" writeup about SOPA is absolutely worth reading. Here's a snippet:

As SOPA is drafted at present, no thinking person could possibly support it. It would give unheard-of censorship power to the Department of Justice and would have numerous foreseeable negative consequences. For example, it would cripple the internet as it exists today and would remove Google, Yahoo and Bing from their positions as market leaders in internet searches in favor of less-restricted foreign search engines. Plainly, this would move U.S. jobs overseas.

Worst of all, Congressman Marsha Blackburn claims (in public) to be staunchly anti-regulation, but she co-sponsored this bill. The same woman who is so “anti-regulation” that she leapt to the defense of Gibson Guitar’s right to use foreign endangered lumber instead of the home-grown kind – literally jumping in front of an ongoing federal investigation – now finds herself to be regulation-loving. The same politician who is in the fore of (correctly) lambasting Eric Holder’s mismanagement of The Fast and the Furious wants to turn over our right to use the internet to the management of the same man.

What gives? Well, the answer isn’t hard to find. We’re coming up on an election year. Some heavy-hitting lobbyists are behind SOPA: the MPAA and other media conglomerates, including ones that own record labels, pay their D.C. firms well. And these big corporations and interests are tired of seeing their bottom-line eroded by the theft of their products. These corporations, like Gibson and its Brentwood CEO, have deep pockets and are spreading around a lot of free cash and campaign ads to get the most draconian version possible of an anti-piracy law through Congress. Congressman Blackburn isn’t the only co-sponsor they bought. This bill has a total of 31 of them, from both parties.

I expect that, as other candidates pop up around the country and realize that the incumbent they're challenging is actively supporting a bill that would enable censorship of the internet, hurt the American economy and put online security at risk, we're going to see plenty of others campaigning on this issue as well.

How could this pass in an election year? Something tells me that no this will not pass in an election year they will wait till after November to ram this through. They will use a lame duck congress with lures of lucrative K street positions.

Hope the election year is enough to put this off

I am sure they wanted it passed late last year to avoid scrutiny and to avoid election year speaking points. But now that it is an election year, maybe that will be enough to derail this legislation until people can get the word out about how bad it is and how it will affect everyone.

Re:

Did you actually read his position? "I don’t want anyone shutting down the internet: not corporations (that’s why I support net neutrality, unlike Congressman Blackburn) and not the U.S. government (that’s why I oppose SOPA as it’s written today). Right now, the internet carries the promise of bringing democracy back to our broken electoral system. Defending a return to democracy – in place of a cash-driven special-interest system like the one we have now – should be something that transcends the political left or right and unites us all."

Remember: They are politicians!!!

That means they will say anything to garner votes. "He-said she-said" is all they know and it is only to garner votes. Once elected, it won't matter who's in office, they'll take their bribes (aka lobby money) and do what they are told.

Re: Re:

And these big corporations and interests are tired of seeing their bottom-line eroded by the theft of their products.

Completely ignoring the whole "what is/isn't theft" argument, it has been repeatedly shown, in great detail, many other factors besides "piracy" that have a MUCH greater impact on the bottom lines of these corporations.

I still say the biggest factor is their failure to understand their biggest competition is "piracy" It's THEMSELVES.

I, personally, own over 1,000+ albums & 18,000+ songs (over 1,000 hours of music), 500+ movies and 100+ seasons of TV shows - all legally purchased. Add in the other member of this household and those numbers easily double if not triple. Clearly I/we don't really NEED to buy their products. What we need is a compelling reason to WANT to buy their products. Too bad they are mostly too busy chasing down people who will never give them money anyways, to take the time to find ways to collect it from people who will give it to them.

To me, inconveniencing people who WILL give you money, in order to inconvenience people who WON'T give you money regardless, and then bitching that your business is suffering on top of it is neither a good business decision or the product of a rational mind.

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I, personally, own over 1,000+ albums & 18,000+ songs (over 1,000 hours of music), 500+ movies and 100+ seasons of TV shows - all legally purchased. Add in the other member of this household and those numbers easily double if not triple.

I own quite a bit myself which I've purchased (though now-a-days, its hard to know whether the CDs I purchased were legal or not -- I don't know who Amazon/CD Universe/etc. buy them from -- how the industry can expect me to know the entire path of everything I purchased when they can't even keep track of whom they gave promotional information to is beyond me.) I even have repurchased movies/music (how many different copies of Star Wars do I have, and I am thinking of buying the BD version.) I am obviously a bloody pirate.

Just wish the industry would listen to their customers instead of always calling them pirates and doing everything in their power distance themselves from their customers.

We need Democrat Senator names that support SOPA. Both parties are in on this, as they are owned by Hollywood. They will do almost anything Hollywood tells them. However, when they know they will be voted out, they will usually cave in to public pressure.

Its time to start outing all of Congress members that support SOPA. We cant let any of these scum bags hide in the cracks like the insects they are. We need to start naming Democrat senators that will vote yes to SOPA.

Re:

"However, when they know they will be voted out, they will usually cave in to public pressure."

Um... no they won't, because they don't think they will be voted out, ever. They pretty much figure that once they have the big companies' support, they are on easy street. Besides, if they get voted out, there is always a good paying position available from one of their "sponsers"

We do not need SOPA/PIPA and I refuse to support any viewpoint that states that we want to censor the Internet.
Censoring the Internet is wrong.
I am now "censoring" my wallet from ever giving the MPAA & RIAA a dime.
If I want to see it bad enough I can wait and be patient and then buy a used physical copy.

As SOPA is drafted at present, no thinking person could possibly support it.

Only January 3rd, and we might already have the understatement of the year. But, in SOPA's defense, currently there are no thinking people that support it. We have lobbyists that do the bidding of their masters... There's the Senators and Congressmen bought by these lobbyists and told what to think... And finally there's the MAFIAA who own the lobbyists and crafted the legislation. The backlash that has happened so far is proof that they clearly have not thought about the long term effects of ever trying to expand their draconian reach and keep from ever having to adapt. Nope, not a single thinking person in the lot!

I agree with you folks -- and I'm running for office

This is not a reasoned critique of SOPA, and it doesn't predate the net outrage over SOPA. The language of this writeup is weak (quite apart from the sickening abuse of the words "theft" and "literally"), and makes conciliatory nods to the industries who launched SOPA in the first place. It plays on the the most vote-tropic themes (e.g. sending jobs overseas) and doesn't even touch on the deeper principles at stake (e.g. freedom of speech and the right to due process).

Mr. Arnold is joining the procession at the tail end. He wants votes now, but isn't ruling out accepting money later for supporting an "improved" version of SOPA. He might be worth voting for, but he'll definitely need watching later; a position he can assume when the issue is hot is one he can abandon when it cools off.

Why does Marsha Want Congress to Regulate the Internet? Why not just say NO FEDERAL branch (the FCC and congress and the federal courts included) has any authority to decide or rule on any aspect concerning the Internet?

Re: Here's another candidate against SOPA

>Unfortunately, he has a (D) next to his name, which is a
>major hurdle in this reddest of red states.

I always thought that Utah was full of reds--dirty commies. The sad part is that there ain't much difference between the Chinese communists who support their 1% ruling class and the republicans who kowtow to their 1%.